Mobile Skype

Doubts surface over mobile Skype

Blyk fails to launch on time

By Tony Dennis: Saturday 14 July 2007, 15:39

THE NEWS that Blyk is continuing "the rigorous testing of its technical platforms" emerged this week. Which in effect means it has missed its launch deadline of mid-2007.

The new mobile network is aimed at 16 to 24 year olds and will provide them with free texts and minutes just for looking at a few mobile ads.

As long ago as April, Blyk revealed that it had tied up with France Telecom/Orange and is launching in the UK first, despite its Scandinavian connexions.

The company confirmed that it had got Buena Vista, Coca-Cola, I-play Mobile Gaming, L’Oreal Paris, StepStone and Yell.com mobile to sign up as advertisers.

But this doesn't appear to have been enough. Blyk claims to be "acting on insight from consumer research conducted alongside our launch." We sounds like adspeak for we ain't got enough supporters yet.

The INQ has always questioned the value proposition behind advertising to people that are so broke they can't afford prepaid minutes.

The argument is that these youngsters eventually become high earners. Well, yes. But will they remember a mobile ad they saw eight years previously?

Virgin Mobile USA recently said that it signed up roughly 330,000 of its 4.8 million subscribers to its ' Sugar Mama' programme.

With Sugar Mama, all youngsters have to do is watch 45 seconds of ads on the Virgin Mobile web site to earn one minute's worth of air time.

It must be working because Virgin reckons it has given away around 9 million minutes of call time so far.

So the theory works but it simply doesn't look a strong enough proposition to allow subscribers to talk for absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately for Blyk, if it is going to become the mobile equivalent of Skype then it'll have to be totally free. At least free between callers on the Blyk network.

source : theinquirer.net